02/14/20 02/14/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy:y: from new york, this is democracy now! >> we are saying, let's put a moratorium on tax proposals until we can ensure that people -- those people, delinquent tax owners, have not been unconstitutionally assessed. amy: a class action has been filed against the city of detroit alleging that the city's housing policies have robbed african americans of their homes and widened the racial wealth gap. we will speak to congresswoman

rashida tlaib and professor bernadette atuahene. then it is valentine's day, or v-day. we will look at one billion rising, the global campaign. every one-day, billion rising day. this year i think we're really looking at how artistic expression merged with activism, has the potential to really empower, encourage, open up the human spirit so we can rise above the current low vibrational statwewe're in and the world right now. amy: we will speak to playwright eve ensler and singer taina asili. all of that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the senate voted 55 to to pass a

45 resolution limiting president trump's authority to attack iran without congressional approval. the vote comes over a month after trump ordered the targeted assassination of iranian general qassem soleimani at the baghdad international airport, sparking a crisis that brought iran and the u.s. to the brink of outright war. this is illinois democratic senator tammy duckworth speaking thursday. >> it has been five weeks since president trump stopped -- stomped on the constitution, launched a strike that killed general soleimanani. while i am glad the man is dead, i am glad he has got to meet his maker, i will tell you that that decision put everyday americans at greater risk because he did nonot have a good plan for howoo reacact to the aftermath of the war. amy: attorney general william barr criticized president trump thursday, saying trump's tweets about the case of his longtime friend and former campaign adviser roger stone are making

it impossible for him to do his job. this is william barr in an interview with abc. >> to have public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, our men and women the, about cases pending in department, and about judges before whom we have cases, make itit i impossible e for me to dy job and to assure the court's and the prosecutor's in the department that we're are doing our job with integrity. amy: general bar intervene earlier this week in roger stone's case after trump went on a late night twitter rampage attacking federal prosecutors and calling the initial sentence of seven to nine years a miscarriage of justice. four federal prosecutors withdrew from the stone case and one resigned from his job entirely over the intervention.

democratic lawmakers are criticizing attorney general barr with house speaker nancy pelosi calling him one of trump's henchmen in connecticut senater richard blumenthal calling on barr to resign. democratic presidential candidate michael bloomberg is facing criticism over a recently resurfaced video clip showed him blaming the 2008 mortgage and financial crisis on the elimination of a longstanding racist lending policy known as redlining. this is georgetown university president john degioia speaking to bloomberg in 2008. back probablyly all started when there was a lot of pressure on banks to makeke loans too everyoyone. redlining,g, i if you rememembes the term whwhere banks took hold neighbororhoods and said, people inin these neighborhrhoods are , they will l not be able t to paf your r mortgages,s, tell salesman n not to go into those

areas,s, and then n congress g t invovolved as lolocal electeted offificials as wl l as hadad, o, that is not fair. ththese people s should be ableo get crededit. anand once you started p pushinn that direction,, bananks started makingng more and more loansns e the creditit of the person buyig the house was not as good as you would like. amy: historians condemned to bloomberg's comment asas widely inaccurate as to how to house because has explained, the long history of discriminatory housing practices like redlining actually help set the stage for the financial crisis, not the elimination of these racist policies. award-winning author and professor ibram x. kendi said the recently resurfaced audio of bloomberg is -- "beyond racist and disqualifying. redlining stopped our wealth building. the 2008 crisis led to largest loss of black wealth in history. this is a double-punch into the historic gut of african americans." meanwhile, "gq" magazine is reporting bloomberg and his

companies have faced nearly 40 sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits brought by 64 women over the past several decades. in more presidential election news, former vice president joe biden held a pair of fundraisers in manhattan thursday night with top wall street executives. among those on the guest list obtained by cnbc were jonathan gray of blackstone, alan hartman of centerview partners, ray mcguire of citigroup, and john mack, former ceo of morgan stanley. the fundraisers come as biden lagged far behind in the first two primary contests in iowa and new hampshire. meanwhile, the iowa democratic party chairman has resigned after the caucus results were delayed and riddddled with erros and inconsistencies. former ohio state wrestler adam disabato accused republican ohio congressmember jim jordan of begging him not to corroborate the widespread sexual abuse

perpetrated by university doctor richard strauss, after disabato's brother, mike, exposed the abuse. this is adam disabato testifying wednesday in a public hearing in the ohio state legislature. --jim jordan call me crying crying. groveling. , beggingurth of july me to go against my brother. begging me. crying for half-hour. that is the kind of cover-up that is going on there. amy: in environmental news, a series of recent measurements is raising alarm bells about the climate crisis. temperatures in antarctica soared last week to nearly 70 degrees fahrenheit. the world meteorological organinization is rereviewing te temperaturrereading to dececide whwhether it qualifieses as the

continent's hottest temperature on record. measurements from the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, meanwhile, show the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record high monday. and last month was the hottest january on record. noaa says the four hottest januaries on record have all occurred since 2016. indigenous protests and blockades across canada have forced cn rail and via rail to shut dowown huge swatches their railwalilines,s fifirsnationon across cana a resi thehe constrtrtion of transcana's 400-mile, $4.7ilillionoaststal gaslslk pipeline. the blockas s haveripppplerail transportion acrs s cana, asas mowhawk d other didigeno land denendersemanand e royaya cadian mounted pole e withaw from the we'sut' soverergn teititory nororthn britith coluiaia. to see ourulull coragege othe pipeline struggl g go to

democracynow.o.. the ssive e sistance to the coastal gaslink pipenene com as t interce revealsow a canadi fossil el compa esntially ught a ut of an oron sheri's partmentn der to mitor oppition to its oposed luid natural gas pipeline and export terminal. the investigation reveals how pembina pipeline corp, the owner of the planned jordan cove project, was the sole funder of the unit of the coos county sheriff's office in oregon that has spent years surveiling opposition to the project's construcuction in southehern or. last year, staff of the federal energy regulatory commission said the jordan cove project would adversely affect at least 18 threatened and endangered species in and around coos bay. a federal judge has temporarily blocked microsoft from working on a $10 billion pentagon cloud

contract. the ruling comes after amazon sued to block the contract, alleging the p pentagon did nont fairly evaluate amazon''s bid because president trump had intervened, telling former defense secretary james mattis to "screw amazon" out of t the dealal andnd 2018.8. this claim surfaced in a book written by madison' former speech writer. amazon argued its bid was not fairly evaluated because trump considers amazon had jeff bezos, who also owns "the washington post, as trump's political enemy. the nation's second-largest publisher of local newspapers has filed for bankruptcy in the lalatest signal of the financial crisis in the journalism world. mcclatchy is the owner of the "miami herald," "the kansas city star," "the sacramento bee," "the charlotte observer," "the news & observer" in raleigh, north carolina, and "the fort worth star-telegram" in texas, among other local papers. it recently won a pulitzer prize for the "miami herald's" reporting on jeffrey epstein,

but it has been plagued by layoffs and financial troubles. mcclatchy says it plans to stay in business and will use bankruptcy to shed legacacy debt and pension obligations. in california, at least 17 people were arrested during the third day of a wildcat strike by third day of a wildcat strike by graduate students at the university of california santa cruz. the hundreds of graduate students are demanding a cost-of-living adjustment of $1412 per month, which student educators say is necessary to avoid living on the brink of homelessness as they teach classes and provide essential work to keep the university running in one of the most unaffordable cities in the country. the strike is not authorized by the local uaw union that represents student workers across the university of california system. the trump administration is facing public outcry over a proposal to weaken the national environmental policy act. the law was enacted in 1970 to

address growing concern with runaway pollution and the potential impacts of major projects like highways, dams and mines. the trump administration is attempting to fast-track new rules that govern how nepa is implemented, slashing the environmental review time while eliminating any consideration of climate change as a potential impact of a project. supporters of the changes include the u.s. chamber of commerce and the koch brothers-funded american petroleum institute. earlier this week, the council on environmental quality held a public hearing in denver on the rule change. an indigenous-led rally opposing the nepa regulatory rollback was held nearby, criticizing the proposed rules as well as the limited access the public had to the hearing itself. advanced online registration for the hearing was required and filled up within two minutes. among those few who did get access to make a formal statement at the hearing was alma sanchez of the group defenders of wildlife.

woman whoear-old cares deeply about the environment, wildlife, our nation's public land, and the health of all of our communities. i am wise only 28, enough to understand and old enough to have witnessed that it is communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities that disproportionately are the victims up environmental contamination and pollution. highways, r refineries, power plants,, and toxic waste are moe likely to end up in my community. our children are more likely to have asthma. nepa is fundamental to protecting the health and rights of minorities and marginalized communities. nepa forces the federal government to daylight its actions along with an accounting of environmental effects. it gives the public a voice in the decision-making. that won't be the case under

these proposed new rules. the government will not be obligated to consider and disclose the full array of environmental effects. worse still, especially to my generation, that hasn't inherited the consequences and burdens of climate change, the government won't have to tell us how its actions like leasing land for oil and gas develop it will affect climate change. this is unacceptable to me. we all have a right to know what the government is doing and what the environmental fallout will be. this rulemaking is yet another gift to polluters and yet another blow to a clean environment and healthy community. the trump administration must withdraw this harmful proposal and stop harming communities like mine. amy: that was alma sanchez of defenders of wildlife at the nepa regulatory rollback hearing in denver on monday. the second and final planned public hearing is scheduled for february 25 in washington, d.c. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: before we began our first story, the rise of bloomberg in the polls to be the next president of the united states. you have long covered him through his three terms from stop and frisk to this issue now of redlining. juan: it is amazing to me that michael bloomberg is getting as much attention as he has by the media. but remember this, the commercial media directly profits from bloomberg's rise because they will be collectinig all of the ad revenues that he is putting out a across televisn nationwide. so there is an actual economic interest in continuing to see bloomberg's rise in the poll on the part of many of the commercial media. i think one thing that strikes me the most, amy, i don't think

any person in american history has ever spent more money cultivating an image in the public of himself as has michael bloomberg. when he ran for mayor, three times in new york city, he spent $267 million just running for mayor. i think his last race he spent $108 million while his opponent, billy thompson, spent about $9 million. it was 11 times more. during that race, and average of 42 commercials a day on new york television director race, bloomberg commercials. it wasn't just the direct contributions. he also threw his foundation was spending about $100 million a year in donations to nonprofit ofh of it debating this sort civic organizations that all were getting these huge checks named "anonymous," that they do were from michael bloomberg. the amount of money this man

spent just when he was running for mayor of new york, now at the national level, is unprecedented in terms of buying an image in the public. what he never talks about, though, he has apologized for his stop and frisk policies but if you look deeper into what happened during that period of time, not only did bloomberg systematically defend stop and frisk for all of those years, but his people attempted to smear the judge, the federal judge heinlein, who was on the case and convinced all of the media behind the scenes to write articles that she was biased and that she was unhinged. amy: to be clear, she was the judge who ruled the stop and frisk policy was unconstitutional. juan: and has the bloomberg administration saw she was about to rule, they started a clear campaign quietly, unlike trump who tweets against judges, they

try to convivince all of the newspapers of the city to write damaging editorials and exposes of the judge as a means to get her removed from the case. of bloomberg,cies whether it is the privatization ,f the public parks in the city the massive privatization of public schools their expansion of charter schools, massive subsidies for commercial development in the city already skyrocketed, this is classic neoliberalism and the i idea tht democratic and some progressives might actually rally behind him i find astonishing. amy: he was a republican mayor before he was an independent and now a democratic candidate. in this latest issue of redlining come up saying that was the cause of the -- not redlining, but eliminating redlining, was the cause of the financial crisis. juan: there been many urban historians who have documented that the real wealth g gap in america between african-americans, latinos, and

the rest of the countries that the result of the systematic discrimination in lending policies for homes that went on for decades -- decades. and the idea that suddenly trying to provide a fair underwriting policies for the african-american and latino community caused the financial meltdown is really only a viewpoint of the extreme right, even of the republican party. amy: finally, these scores of lawsuits against bloomberg and his company around issues of sexual harassment, it was very interesting on "the view," the abc tv show, would bloomberg went on it and i think -- just recently in january, when he was asked about this, he commented that it was his company was just y humorof fostering baud and he would not take any steps to release women who signed confidentiality agreements, nda

agreements, with his company to speak publicly. juan: that is especially important these days, given the metoo movement, keeping actions hidden from the public view. candidate foris a president, he should definitely lift those nondisclosure agreements go we can find out exactly what is going on in his company. amy: we will continue to find dust cover not only mayor bloomberg, but all of the presidential candidates as this 2020 election season heats up. juan: we begin today's show in detroit, where a showdown between progressive lawmakers and the city is taking on racist housing policies that robbed african americans in detroit of their homes and widened the racial wealth gap. on thursday, with the support of democratic representative rashida tlaib of michigan, the coalition for property tax justice announced a class action lawsuit against the city of detroit, wayne county, and the

state of michigan in response to unfair property tax foreclosures. one-in-four detroit propertities hahave been subject to property tax foreclosure, a level comparable only to the foreclosure rates during the great depression. and according g to legal expert, many of them were caused by illegally inflated property taxes that violated the state's constitution. even though detroit tried to fix the problem in 201017, it is stl overvaluing the lowest priced homes. this is life-long detroit resident sonja bonnett speaking during a press conference on thursday. in 2015, her home was illegally foreclosed by the wayne county, which includes the city ofof detroit. >> what i tell the community every time i go out, it feels very personal to lose your home. you feel like you did something very wrong. like you just could not keep it

together. informed that the city illegally and unconstitutionally took my home, it lit a fire. we began fighting. this is where the fight has brought us. i want to leave you with a couple of things today. number one, this is an 85% black city. it would n not be happening if this city was 85% white. -- theywo, land iss sold are stealing your land. we cannot let them get away with this yet agagain. because lord k knows they have stolen and i. amy: detroit is now 80% african-american and 40% of the city's residents live below the federal poverty line. but as downtown detroit becomes increasingly gentrified, thousands of detroit's longtime

residents, mostly african-american families, have lost their homes to foreclosure fofor propertyty taxes thehey sd not have been paying in the first place because the poverty tax exemption n excuses ththosen poverty from paying. well, for more, we go now to detroit, michigan, where we're joined by democratic congress member rashida tlaib of michigan, who has worked on this lawsuit from before the time she entered congress. and we are joined by bernadette professor at chicago-kent college of law, and research profefessor at the american bar foundation. member of the coalition for property tax justice. her most recent study is titled "predatory cities," forthcoming in the uc-berkeley law review later this month. we welcome you both to democracy now! congressmember tlaib, talk about why this is so critical in your town, in your city of detroit.

>> i represent the third poorest congressional district in the country out of 435 congressional seats in the nation. the human impact of what it feels like to not be offered the same equal rights that the ersority of other michigand were getting, to be able to have the right to appeal, but also the right to your home assessed every year as required by not only the city charter, the michigan state constitution. so many of my residents forever got elected were coming saying something about i don't know why did i get this after the deadline? what is happening here? when we file the foia, 260,000 detroiters received the notice either late or even past the deadline. it was devastating. the fact they did not even get the right to appeal it. what we hear from the city administration and those folks and power to make the change is, well, it is their fault they did not do anything about it.

but you didn't give them the option. that is why am amending the coalition what we call detroit -- pushing forward and speaking truth. that has been hard. you heard from a mother recently of seven children. she felt like she did something wrong. when she finallyly felt -- heard the data, heard she was cheated out of her home, it felt liberating in some sense that she wasn't the one in the wrong. she should not feel ashamed. the city of detroit and those in power should feel ashamed. ofn: congresswoman, in terms how this crisis is affecting not just detroit, but across the the wealth,rms of especially of african-americans and latinos because of the seizures of their homes and especially resulting from after 2008 mortgage meltdodown with 70 other people went underwater.

>> homes are in economic stability. historically in other cities , majority black cities, what you know is these are homes that families have been in there for generations. generation after generation. you could probably go back -- i remember i was telling bernadette there was a woman who was born in her home. a senior citizen in her 70's, and loses her home for less than $1000. it is devastating to see something so ripped away from you. yes, economic stability is so tied to homeownership. it is not only what hahappen hee with this tax foreclosure crisis and i think illegal taking is that we also see that big banks, mortgage industry, others are so institutional systemic racism within their processes. we see it with settlement cases all across the country over and over.

i remember specifically in financial services committee hearing about a whistleblower within bell's work -- wells fargo saying he was taught and trained that if somebody came in withth an accent to giveve a hir intererest rate. our communities of color all across the united states are facing barriers after barrier and the structural kind of racist approaches and processes. to me, what happened to many of my detroit nghbors and not being offered due process and getting their homes taken away from them, was completely wrong. the devastating part, too, after i got into the united states congress, when i found out millions of dollars sent to detroit to handle or address the blight, address this housing crisis when i found out detroit -- i already had known this -- detroit was responsible for much of that. the federal government is trying to fix an issue that was created by the own city administration. it is in the charter. it is the law of the lien in the city. you're supposed to assess

people's homes. walking away from your responsibility and your duty saying, oh, everybody got a notice -- but you gave them notice after the deadline they could actually appeal. it is simply wrong. if you ask anybody across this country, the access to fairness and due process is so key. that is why i think the class action suit is important. not only do we have to fight industry to tell the truth and tell our stories, also the house floor congress or many other local government, but also through the courts. we have to demand we are treated with respect and dignity. to take people's homes away from them where their children live, their neighborhood -- everything is ripped from them all because somebody decided they did not deserve it, they did not deserve the process or equality and do price that everybody else gets around the staples of amy: professor bernadette atuahene, you teach at illinois institute of technology, at the law school

there. you have done deep research into the racial wealth gap. if you can talk about the facts and figures behind this lawsuit, what it has meant, and how the detroit mayor is currently responding to the class action in deaealing with this illegal seizure of tax money or throwing people out of their homes. >> the first thing i want people to know is in detroit, we have one in four homes that have gone through property tax foreclosure. one in four. we have not seen this number of property tax foreclosures in american history since the great depression. so the real question is, what is going on? i have done research that shows between 2009 and 2015, anywhere in each of the seven years, anywhere between 55 and 85% of properties were being assessed and violation of the michigan state constitution, which clearly says no property is to be assessed at more than 50% of its market value.

and then when we looked at which houses were being overr assesse, we found out 95% or more of the lowest valued homes were being over assessed while the highest valued homes were actually being under assessed. so the next study we did is because any time do research in detroit and don't deal with race directly, or during everyone a disservice. we looked at wayne county. we looked at all of the weenies of valleys of wayne county. there are three that have a super majority african-american, 77% or more. each of those majority black cities were being subjected to the unconstitutional tax assessment and foreclosure at a greater rate than the majority white cities. the third and final study we did looked at the relationship between the unconstitutional tax assessments and foreclosure rates. in fact, there are lots of things that can cause foreclosure. poverty, a death in the family, etc. we needed to hold all of those

variableles constitutute really isolate the effect of thihis one variablele of unconstitutional x assessment on foreclosure rates. we are able to say that 10% of these historic rates of tax foreclosure in detroit would not have happened but for these unconstitutional property tax assessments. that is 10% of all foreclosures. when you look at just the lowest valued homes, we are able to say one in four or 25% of those foreclosures would not have happened but for these unconstitutional property tax assessments. , theiry and the mayor response to this overwhelming evidence of illegality is to say, you know, if you thought you were being over assessed, you should have filed an appeal. moving the blame, the onus from the city to do the property tax assessments correctly to homeowners to sing they should have appealed. but what this lawsuit is all

about as representative tlaib pointed out, is the fact the city did not even give people a chance to appeal. why? in 2017, they mailed the property tax assessment notices late. they mailed them late, after the appeal deadline, meaning detroiters did not have an opportunity to appeal these illegally inflated property taxes. that is the heart of this particular lawsuit stop it is justue process lawsuit fighting on behalf of detroiters who were being over assessed and not given an opportunity to fight. juan: professor, obviously, the superhigh assessments meant that those homeowners, especially in the poorest communities, were being required to pay more property taxes. we are in a situation now, obviously detroit was in financial crisis for many years

and now all of these reports about how detroit is coming back most of what is the real story now as to how detroit is coming back? let's put it in context of detroit has the highest property tax rate in the state of michigan, the second highest tax rate in the united states. on top of these already high tax rates, there being legally assessed, meaning on top of the highest tax rate in the country, they are now being taxed even more. that is the starting point. what was the question again? comingng detroit is back, bernadette. one thing you should know, if you go to my neighborhoods, they're not coming back from whatever the heck the folks are saying they're coming back from. poverty among children has increased in the city of detroit. you see neighborhood after neighborhood that has been left behind. when they say coming back, they're talking about the 7.2

miles, some of the wealthiest tracks in the city of detroit, talking about billionaires that continue to take tax giveaways from our school aid fun while literally down the street for the hockey stadium, for the for-profit development, while down the street we have schools that don't have clean drinking water. we have schools that are literally closing down, neighborhood schools that have been anchors in our neighborhood. it is hard because i had had a senior citizen tell me detroit is coming back from where? why are they continually talking about only the downtown area and surroundingg areas? it is like an island. anything beyond that island is real true poverty. and people from those that can't afford the water bill that little northerly one day their water -- literally their water gets shut off in the next day the children are being taken away from them because they are saying they are being negligent, the same amount of money they're using for the for-profit industry.

they won't even use it to help a woman get her water back on. the hardship that we see our families facing, these are working class fafamilies, and en the mother of seven, she was saying, we are the ones out there in the restaurants that you don't look at, the ones that are among you in your neighbors that have been part of the city of detroit for so long. they feel truly left behind. not only with the property taxes, but the water shut offs, the devastation of what has happened to our education system, and so forth. this is extremely put such a tremendous hardship on so many of our families. >> we had the coalition for property tax justice like to think of the comeback story is a tale of two cities. you have downtown detroit, developers getting tax subsidies and tax breaks went in the

neighborhoods, they are being unconstitutionally assessed and foreclosed on at historic rates. we you think about detroit coming back come as representative tlaib said, it is about a comeback for seven square miles that includes downtown. when you look at the rest of detroit, the majority of detroit and a real black detroit, there is no comeback. amy: congressmember rashida tlaib, i went to ask abobout a rerelated issue, the presidentil campaign level, democratic presidential candidate michael bloomberg criticism over thiss recently resurfaced a video clip that shows him blaming the 2000 eight mortgage and financial crisis on the elimination of the long-standing racist lending policy known as redlining. this is georgetown university president speakingng to bloombeg in 2008. >> you made some reference to the elements t that led to where we are tododay. couldd youou go a a little deeed tell us from your perspective, how did we get here? >> you could go back i would s y

it probably all starteted back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to o make loans too everyoyone. wasining, if you u remember,, the term where banks took hold neighborhoods and said, people in these neighghborhoods a are , they wilill not be a able to paf ththeir mortgagages, t tl your salelesman don't go into ththose areass. then congress gott invololved, local electedd officicials as w, sasaid that is n not fair, these people shoululd be able to get credit. and once h he s srted pushihingt direction, banks started making morere and moree l loans w where credit of ththe p person buyinge house wasn't as good as you would like. amy: that was mayor bloomberg 12 years ago. congressmember tlaib, if you can respond? >> look, even many of the folks that i served with in congress, many are millionaires. they are completely disconnected with the american people. even when the federal shutdown

happened, yet literally colleagues on both sides, i don't get it, why are they in the food bank line? why can't the federal employees apply for a loan? that is a real disconnect government is supposed to be about people. our public tax dollars are supposed to be used to create economic stability, to increase homeownership, to create these programs that i think are a win/win for everyone. instead, have folks with a very narrow lens that see things through a different perspective than those on the ground. the majority of americans do not live within that little bubble of the 1% and those that have. i think people like me are running for office finally and winning because we are folks that are dealiling -- i live a very humble background. i am the eldest of 14, the child of immigrants. my dad only had a fourth-grade education. my mother, eighth grade.

when people that are in leadership positions don't understand that even if they don't get it, they have to surround himself with people that understand what it means to live in poverty in america, what it means to go to sleep hungry. what it means to live your corporate pollution and what that means to our public health. various brokenof systems. amy, you know this. if i open the curtain and looked behind that of all the broken systems from mass incarceration to what is happening in our immigration system, how dehumanizing it has become in caging children, to what is happening to our health care and education systems, it has become all for profit. people are making money off the pain of our oppression. that is something i continue to speak truth to. no matter who is running for office, i will demand they talk word poverty and real

structural problems that lead to people's oppression in our country. we have to continue to think beyond the same old recycled folks running for office. they had their chance. they did not change people's lives for the better. then you have to move on. they did not do the job to fix the structural problems i feel like in some ways get left behind. they like mandates. mandates.ke it doesn't work. you need real structural change so when somebody walks in the door, they're offered an equal access to opportunities they get easily acceptable to those that have. --: rashida tlaib clubs i continue to push back against these narratives. i want folks listening to this to know this. just because someone is a billionaire or millionaire does not mean they know what is best for the american people. it is those that have suffered along with them that understand the suffering and the oppression themselves. we need to hear more from them. we need those

individuals to run for office because i truly believe those are the ones people are waiting for. amy: rashida tlaib, we want to ask you about this major moment this past week when the palestinian president mahmoud securitye to the u.n. council, responding to president trump's so-called middle east peace plan. you're the first palestinian-american congresswoman. i want to thank you, bernadette chicago, professor of college of law and institute of technology and research professor at the american bar foundation. member of the coalition for property tax justice. we will be back with congressmember rashida tlaib in already seconds. and then we will talk about this, v-day, this day against violence against women and girls. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: performed by taina asili and she is coming up on democracy now! just a moment. we want to stay with congressmember rashida tlaib one more minute. juan: we continue our conversation with rashida tlaib the first palestinian american elected to congress. i want to ask about president trump's so-called middle east peace plan. earlier this week palestinian , president mahmoud abbas forcefully rejected the plan during a speech to the u.n.

security council tuesday. >> this plan will not bring peace or stability to the region. and therefore, we will not accept this plan. we will confront his application on the ground. this is a summary of the project that was presented to us. this is the state that they will give us. it is like swiss cheese, really. you will accept a similar state and similar conditions? , you're thea tlaib congresswoman and michigan's district along with ilhan omar, the first muslim woman elected to congress. your response to the president's plan and to the response by the palestinian authority?

>> i grew up in detroit, the most beautiful come up like in the country. so much of what i learned here of these forms of oppression and racism that think is s so present in all different processes, butut even just fighting right now and my own backyard agagainst unconstitutional taking of people's homes by over assessing their homes and everything, there are so many conductivity there to buy what the current president is pushing forward and trying to basically legalize theft for selling of the palestinian families left there. for me, what is really critically important for people to understand that with all of these terminologies, with colleagues always ask me, what does occupation mean, i want listeners to know what the human impact is of taking people's land, taking people's livelihood away from them. and this plan just continues to dig into that approach to what

is happening in palestine and israel. i can tell you i want to hear more and more of those that are on the ground, both palestinians and israelis were against occupation, who want to see a true solution that actually involves them having a seat at the table. i think that is not what is going to happen when the president just sits his buddies and others that only see it through a very, i believe, racist lens that is the span of othering politics. it is demonizing in the way the president and even his -- others have depicted palestinians as this is what they deserve, don't deserve anything more. i can tell you, my grandmother lives in the west bank and she deserves human dignity. this does not provide her human dignity. she just wants to live freely with equality, with the freedom to travel, with the freedom to access heaealth caree come

opportunities that help her have a better life. amy: rashida tlaib, thank you for being with us, democratic congress member from detroit, first palestinian-american congresswoman. this is democracy now! when we return, taina asili and eve ensler. stay with us. ♪ [mumusibreak]k]

amy: taina asili "we are rising." she released the song and collaboration with one billion rising for this v-day. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonznzalez. juan: this valentine's day, people around the world are taking to the streets to protest violence against women and girls. from the philippines to inditoto italy to bolivia, thousandofof women n in more thanan one hundd countries will reclaim plilic space through dance and performance. the e global movemement is calld one e billion risising. amy:y:ne billion rising. it takes its name from the

shocking statistic that one in three women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. that's one billllion women and girls. the movement started valentine's day 2012 and has continued to grow every year since. they say they won't stop dancing until violence against all women -- cis, transgender and those with fluid gender r identities - has ended. well, for more, we're joined here in new york city by two guests. eve ensler is the award-winning playwright and author of the vagina monologues. founder of v-day and one billion rising. and taina asili is a puerto rican singer, filmmaker, and activist. we just heard part of her song "we are rising." the significance in this year 2020. you started, what, eight years ago? >> eight years ago and we thought it would be a one-year campaign. guess what, dancing spread like a fabulous virus around the world. i just want to say to all of the activists who have already begun to rise, we are already getting

videos from australia were women really begin the day by taking off their clothes and diving into the ocean, doing a mad answer. they have risen at the presidential palace in the philippines. the day has begun. this year is really significant because of the rise we are seeing across the world of , acism, white supremacy desecration of the climate, of trans rights being obliterated, of workers rights being obliterated. i think one of the things we know from dance and music is it raises the vibration so that all of these forces of darkness, whether they are the leaders of our own country or the philippines or india, just this kind of low level oppression, low level hatred -- what dance and music does is it lives the vibration. right now in 180 countries that we know of, peoeople will have already begun to rise and will keep risining.

29 states of f india are rising. what is beautitiful about indnds they havave joined forces all of the peoplple risingng against te cititizenship a amendment so the are seeing now in the eieighth year how intersectional this movement has become and how like dance and like energy, it has brought all kinds of coalitions together. in some places, inindigenous people are rising for land rights that corporations are taking for drilling. some places like last week we rose in new york against governor cuomo for one fair wage , restaurant workers were still living on tip wages and facing some of the highest rates of sexual abuse. in villages in zimbabwe, there rising with tribal leaders who are now beginning to understand that violence against women must be part of the discourse and they must change basic cultural ways. we are seeing this incredible diversity of risings, but solidarity in terms of the fact we know women's bodies are the

landscape on which so muchch violence is inflicted, whether it is violence literally of rape, harassmenti,ncest, battery, or the abuse of poverty, denigration of migrant rights, the denigration of workrkers rights, the denigratin of lgbtq rights. we are seeing this across the globe. i am particularly proud because in places like mexico where they have been rising for the last nine years against sex trafficking, they are having an impact on sex trafficking. in hong kong, were most domestic workers have been rising for eight years, they have changed laws and guided so women can no longer -- got it so women can no longer clean windows on the outside of high-rise because women were dying. they change that through legislation. we're seeing culture change occur because dance is so powerful. to turn to play

more of a music video for the ng "we are rising and th ask about urur invvemements well. valiant sou w who snd u up agaiait the unjust wars muititudesho d defthe wawas along the rdrder massssesho unini to protect our water rebemindnds o unioioze for worker r right feless h hrts who fight to defend trans leses those who keke bactheieir nd and their hethth those whseseek tredidistbute the wealth youth whdedemand rigighto education those o o reclm popolical poweinin the natatio

♪ talk about asili, the form of resistance in music. >> for the past 20 or more years i've been doing social justice writing. addressing issues of climate justice, mass incarceration, we heard -- i wrote one after the last presidential elections. a lot of my music has been emdic, and theanth music. i was sitting with his concept of what is it me to write phantoms for our movement? the beyondng down to the bars conference in new york and as it happens, eve was there and also thinking about this idea of a new antm for on billion ringng. the e twcameogether ally nicely. forr me, i s what i do, this

music, writi anthemic writing music for socialhahange as parof my legacy as a puerto rican woman. my mother was a dancer. my father was a singer. they were both k keepers of our puerto rican cultural traditions. from that point titil today, i ve seen l of the musichat has co o out of myultural askground as a puerto rican a part of the work that i do today. to me, when we look at t the history of oppssion, art, creativity music has alway gone hand in hand. it is partf our humaman gift. that isomething that s w with meme. thiss the craft that i have been honing in on d d tryi too think about not just thinking about it from a u.s. perspective, but also a globabal

perspective and how to intersect with one billionisisings work that they are doing around the globe. so it has been a beaeautiful challenge. amy: i remember bumping into you and interviewing you at the first women's march in 2017 when you sang on the stage outside of -- well, it was the next day after president trump in the audience he had the dust of significant, much larger the next 100s of thousands of women came to protest. this issue of the global women's movement, eve, that taina asili was referencing, this section alley and where you are now in 2020. >> i wasas thinking today, we he actors, artists, indigenous across the globe. one of the things we are seeing, we even changed our mission this year which is v-day is know about violence against all women

and girls and mother earth because we can't be addressing violence against women unless we are addressing climate crisis. and how we feel about women's bodies so much how we feel about the earth. the same raping and pillaging and taking without permission come the same not thinking of long term consequences of violence. if we look at what has happened in the movement over the last eight years, it is organically understood that you can't end violence against women without addressing all of the attending issues. you can't do it without addressing morbid inequality of wealth and capitalism, without addressing imperialism and colonialism, how weird treating workers and workers rights. so many women are the front line low-paying jobs will stop what is beautiful is to see how ed this movement and in some ways it is easier to do in other parts of the world because in places like india or

the phihilippines they have built-in movements and coalitions that are coming together through dance. i think dance has made it easier in some ways. dance opens up the heart. it opens up the binaries. it opens up spaces where people can literally feel their community, feel their bodies, be in collective spaces, , takeback spaces who have been denied to womemen who have been so abused and read claim those spaceces -- reclaim the spaces as theirs. slowly over these eight years we are building a movement that is not only intersectional, it is artistically and intersectional which means it has some kind of new vibration that is bringing these issues together in a way that feels holistic and organic. amy: we want to end with a very music we've been playing throughout, your music, taina rising" on this valentine's day. we want to thank you both eve ensler, award-winning

playwright, author of "the vagina monologues." and taina asili, singer, film keker, a actctivt. we go out wi " "we a rising." >> ♪ in a ti o of anpheaeava willomome a ansfsfortion ignite a fire that wl l burn likehehe sun beco a strong movement fierce and determined ♪ amy: you can see thehohole tng atemococranow.oror over 500,000 pelele hav alady watch this video. plplease watch and spread it

everywhere. amy: we want to thank you for being with us on this v-day. democracy now! is accepting applications for a paid, year-long news production fellowship here in our new york city studio. get the information at democracynow.org. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

>> this is al jazerera. ♪ >> hello there. newshour.e coming up in the next 60 minutes. the taliban and u.s. reach a deal to reduce violence. success could lead to a major troop with withdraw from afghanistan. china accuses overreaction from afghanistan coronavirus and deals with the outbreak. a military helicopter struck down in northwest syria as ground forces struggled to retake the remaining area.